PEN SA Member Mark Winkler Shortlisted for the 2015 Short Story Day Africa Prize

02 Nov 2015

PEN SA member Mark Winkler has been shortlisted for the 2015 Short Story Day Africa Prize. His short story “Ink” has been chosen by the three judges – PEN South Africa member Mary Watson, Kenyan Billy Kahora and Nigerian Abubakar Adam Ibrahim – along with five other stories.

PEN SA members Christine Coates and Louis Greenberg were included on the 2015 Short Story Day Africa Prize longlist and so their stories, “How We Look Now” and “Oasis” will be included in this year’s anthology, Water: New Short Fiction From Africa.

See the full shortlist:

Press release:

2015 Short Story Day Africa Prize Shortlist announced

28 October 2015

Short Story Day Africa is pleased to announce the shortlist for the R10 000 Short Story Day Africa Prize for Short Fiction.

This year over 450 entries were received for the Prize from over two dozen countries, from writers both living on the African continent and in the African diaspora. Once whittled down according to submissions guidelines, each story was stripped of all identifying elements and sent to two readers. A selection of 60 stories was then whittled down by the SSDA team to a longlist of 21. All longlisters stories will be collected in Water: New Short Fiction From Africa, Short Story Day Africa’s third anthology.

The esteemed judging panel for this year’s Prize consisted of South African Mary Watson, Kenyan Billy Kahora and Nigerian Abubakar Adam Ibrahim. The three judges blind-read and judged all the longlisted stories and, between the three of them, they selected a shortlist of six.

Both of SSDA’s previous anthologies have received critical acclaim, with two stories from Feast, Famine & Potluck shortlisted for The Caine Prize for African Writing – with one, “My Father’s Head” by Okwiri Oduor, going on to win the prize – while >Terra Incognita received wide critical praise, including an excellent review from the L.A. Review of Books.

The full longlist for the Short Story Day Africa Prize for Short Fiction 2015 – and the list of stories to be published in Water: New Short Fiction From Africa – is as follows:

Alex Latimer, “A Fierce Symmetry” (South Africa)

Donald Molosi, “Beetroot Salad” (Botswana)

Wairimu Muriithi, “Love Like Blue” (Kenya)

Christine Coates, “How We Look Now” (South Africa)

Mark Mngomezulu, “Urgency” (Swaziland)

Cat Hellisen, “The Worme Bridge” (South Africa)

Louis Ogbere, “Were” (Nigeria)

Efemia Chela, “The Lake Retba Murder” (Ghana/Zambia)

Louis Greenberg, “Oasis” (South Africa)

Chido Muchemwa, “Finding Mermaids” (Zimbabwe)

Wesley Macheso, “This Land Is Mine” (Malawi)

Siyanda Mohutsiwa, “And Then We Disappeared Into Some Guy’s Car” (Botswana)

About Us

PEN South Africa, founded in 1927, is one of more than 140 Centres of PEN International, which currently operate in over 100 countries. A worldwide, politically non-aligned organisation of writers, PEN International is dedicated to promoting freedom of expression, and encouraging the growth and strengthening of literature. Its foundational text is the PEN Charter, which all Centres and members of PEN must uphold.